October's Bright Blue Weather

Thank goodness the gloomy cold has given way to....... sunny cold.  At least by my standards.  There was a good frost on the grass and roofs this morning, though not a killing freeze.  The sky has been absolutely cloudless - not a puff, a wisp, a streak....nothing but blue.

Sunny October day.

The down side is that you can see a LOT of leaves have come off during the wet spell, and now that the sun is out it's really, truly fall (as if the calendar hadn't clued you in). 

Andy is finally able to get after a job that's needed doing badly this year.  It really was too hot earlier to do it, but now that the year is winding down it's getting crucial to get. it. done.

Laying shingles, what fun

Somewhat more than half yet to go

He's going to replace the shingles on the whole lower storey, so has to go over the cupola and across the front of the house and wrap around the corner where the electrical entry cable is.  We'll move the snazzy wood scaffolding as he goes along.  The weather is supposed to hold like this into the early part of next week.  Here's hoping.

Knowing a freeze was possible, I went over to Julie's and picked a bucket of mint so more jelly could be made for us by the good folks at Los Gatos.  They have a great side business of making specialty jellies, jam, chutneys and the like.  They're awesome.

Bucket o' mint

The usual patch was pretty sparse this year due to the hot dry weather all summer.  I hunted around the south side of the pond under the tree line where the spillover runs and found a much better area to pick in.  It was wildly overgrown and wading through the goldenrod and multiflora rose to get there I thought of the lyrics Johnny Horton sang in "The Battle of New Orleans"

"Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go."

But it's really good mint.

After taking some pics of the newest roving which had still not gotten listed on the website (it is now) and pulling together a web order to mail out tomorrow I took Holly down the road for you daily walk.  You'd think that walking a country dog is sort of pointless given that they must exercise themselves.  Yeah, but she is only out when we are out, and she doesn't go farther than the lawn or upper barn and corn crib area.  She does hunt for mice in the alfalfa field (mouse snack, yum!) but that's the extent of it, for which we're grateful.  A supervised dog is a safe dog.  So we try to walk somewhere interesting every day and being a dog, EVERYwhere is interesting so she never tires of the same route.

We saw deer.  Well, I did.  She was too short to see over the grass, but she could smell them!

WHO DAT??

Nicely colored hips on the multiflora rose in the hedgerow.

Pesty thing, but at least you're pretty.

And a valiant butter-and-sugar wildflower still blooming between the tractor tire tracks.

Pretty, and NOT pesty.

The shadows were getting long by the time we got back.

What are you doing still walking?  It's almost time to let us in.

And of course the cats knew it was supper time.

Where. Have. You. Been?  Alexi, Ivan and Natasha

Speaking of kitties, little Calvin is past the kitten stage and is now a young catling.  He is off being 'tutered and Dexter is enjoying a 24 hour vacation from his busyness.  He's kind of looking around for him, so I'm sure he'll be glad to see Calvin return tomorrow.  He just probably won't admit it.

Peace and quiet and a sunny windowsill to myself.  Thank you.

Tomorrow......more sun, more fun!